Are Unions Necessary in the Modern World? - Page 17

On March 09 2011 18:23 Severedevil wrote:
Property is an odd beast. It's obvious why a person who makes a thing should get to decide who can have that thing. But land and natural resources have no inherent owner.

On March 09 2011 19:18 dogabutila wrote:
This whole debate misses the distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions.


The question is, what is the purpose of a union?
How does this union fit into government?

The simple answers are that unions are to fight against the employer taking advantage of them. In essence, the union wants to make it such that employees do as little work as possible for the most compensation possible. HOWEVER, in a private sector setting, the union MUST take into account the competition and competitiveness of the industry. Demands too high render the company unprofitable and will drive the company into bankrupcy. Thus the union must weigh its demands against the wellbeing of the company as well, because if the company goes bankrupt // out of business, the union loses as well.

This is not true for a public sector union. What loss does the government have to agreeing to all demands? None. They don't personally pay out, they do not have a bottom line to look at (well....people are starting to care about the budget) but there is no incentive at all to NOT grant every concession possible when negotiating. Unions can never lose.

Another markable difference, public sector unions can basically choose with whom they negotiate. They are active politically (which would be why dems/libs are fighting to the death to preserve union power) and have a marked interest in who they help elect. This is not possible with private sector unions. They do not choose who their bosses are, they do not choose who they negotiate with.

Public sector unions is basically the government employees fighting against the government. The only goal is to enlarge government expenses and reduce productivity. Looking at this historically, public sector unions never even existed for much of the time when private sector unions were necessary. Implimentation of public sector unions was a political move designed to enlarge and empower the left wing political base.

Are unions necessary? Yes. Far less so then they used to be. Much of the things unions originally had to fight for are now rights granted by law (by the government no less...) Unions were the people vs the business, ensuring they were treated fairly. Then the government stepped in and basically did the job for unions, ensuring workers rights. This is why we see much lower private sector unionization.

Are unions necessary for the public? No. And they never have been. Removal of collective bargaining is the rectification of a 50 year mistake. Do people need protection from the government that already ensures that workers have rights? No. Do people need protection from the employers that they elect? No.


Anybody supporting the wisconsin public unions is either out of touch with reality, blindly left wing, or does not understand the effects of a union in the public sector.

On March 09 2011 18:25 Grumbels wrote:
Slavery has economic benefits too. %.

On March 09 2011 19:18 dogabutila wrote:
This whole debate misses the distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions.


The question is, what is the purpose of a union?
How does this union fit into government?

The simple answers are that unions are to fight against the employer taking advantage of them. In essence, the union wants to make it such that employees do as little work as possible for the most compensation possible. HOWEVER, in a private sector setting, the union MUST take into account the competition and competitiveness of the industry. Demands too high render the company unprofitable and will drive the company into bankrupcy. Thus the union must weigh its demands against the wellbeing of the company as well, because if the company goes bankrupt // out of business, the union loses as well.

This is not true for a public sector union. What loss does the government have to agreeing to all demands? None. They don't personally pay out, they do not have a bottom line to look at (well....people are starting to care about the budget) but there is no incentive at all to NOT grant every concession possible when negotiating. Unions can never lose.

Another markable difference, public sector unions can basically choose with whom they negotiate. They are active politically (which would be why dems/libs are fighting to the death to preserve union power) and have a marked interest in who they help elect. This is not possible with private sector unions. They do not choose who their bosses are, they do not choose who they negotiate with.

Public sector unions is basically the government employees fighting against the government. The only goal is to enlarge government expenses and reduce productivity. Looking at this historically, public sector unions never even existed for much of the time when private sector unions were necessary. Implimentation of public sector unions was a political move designed to enlarge and empower the left wing political base.

Are unions necessary? Yes. Far less so then they used to be. Much of the things unions originally had to fight for are now rights granted by law (by the government no less...) Unions were the people vs the business, ensuring they were treated fairly. Then the government stepped in and basically did the job for unions, ensuring workers rights. This is why we see much lower private sector unionization.

Are unions necessary for the public? No. And they never have been. Removal of collective bargaining is the rectification of a 50 year mistake. Do people need protection from the government that already ensures that workers have rights? No. Do people need protection from the employers that they elect? No.


Anybody supporting the wisconsin public unions is either out of touch with reality, blindly left wing, or does not understand the effects of a union in the public sector.

On March 09 2011 23:31 Jermstuddog wrote:


Your opinion is just as out of touch with reality.

You're trying to argue that any public union would keep its mouth shut and watch the government shoot itself in the foot so long as it doesn't affect the workers pay-check, and that simply isn't the case. I can give you plenty of examples where unions have fought against equipment/facility cuts that don't affect the pay of its members, rather their productivity.

Unions are necessary because they represent the interest of the worker. Yes, this directly conflicts with the interest of both the employer and the consumer, but without workers, nobody is happy anyway.

On March 09 2011 22:55 meadbert wrote:

Slaver does not have economic benefits. Economies based on free labor are almost always more powerful than those based on slave labor.

On March 09 2011 22:55 meadbert wrote:

Slaver does not have economic benefits. Economies based on free labor are almost always more powerful than those based on slave labor.

On March 09 2011 23:38 Wazabo wrote:


Sums pretty well. Plus, the workers are a big percentage of the consumers anyway, higher salaries generally means higher consumes.

On March 09 2011 23:45 SharkSpider wrote:

This statement is false. Unions increase wealth disparity by diverting income from otherwise employed people to people who benefit from the unions. It's a fact that higher income means lower total percentage as consumption. This means that the net result is lower consumption, but a diversion of consumption expenditure from "cheap" goods to expensive ones. Ie, unions probably help iPad sales but hurt cheap desktop sales by a greater amount. (Assuming a union salary can afford an iPad and wellfare can net you a cheap desktop, it's an example, I don't care if it's true or not)

On March 10 2011 00:07 Wazabo wrote:


In Europe there aren't workers who aren't protected by unions, even if a single company doesn't have its union, there are still national unions. The salaries are pretty much similar in every company in the same business.

By the way the problem is not the difference between people who get 30k a year compared to who get 60k. The problem is the difference between the top 5% of the popoluation and the rest. Atleast here in Italy 10% of the population owns aprox. 48% of the wealth. The sad part is that the rest 90% of population pay aprox. 90% of the taxes. THIS is the real issue. And I guess US are on a similar situation if not even worse. Wealth distribuition is a big problem, and unions are the rapresentative of the weaker side.

On March 10 2011 00:41 Skillz_Man wrote:
I think unions are stupid. They are a failed thing... I believe we do need unions, but they let the power get into their heads. Sorry 'bout the faul language, but they really bother me:

My dad is the manager of a Waste Water Treatment plant and he has several workers there that are totally lazy bastards who get to work and don't do shit at all, but he can't fire them because they are in a union. He also has a worker who was in a car accident and is paralyzed from neck down, and he isn't allowed to fire her either. It's simply ridicolous.

Workers have rights that need to be respected, but unions are the extremists of the western society. Unions need to be in the power of the government, because it's probably the hardest power to corrupt. Ofcourse the people that are lazy benefit from unions but overall it's just making a lazy lazy society that will whine about everything.